


A Home for the Holidays

by theremin



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21903211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theremin/pseuds/theremin
Summary: Richard and Gilfoyle swap houses for Christmas. This is a Silicon Valley take on The Holiday.
Relationships: Dinesh Chugtai/Bertram Gilfoyle, Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 32
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**DECEMBER 23d**

Richard was watching Winnie pack the few belongings she kept at his place up in a bag, his chin jutting out, his arms folded, dancing from foot to foot. She'd brought a plastic bag of his stuff, which was unceremoniously dumped in the hallway. "Listen uh, like, you couldn't even wait until after Christmas to like, fucking dump me?"

"I'm sorry, Richard," she said. She didn't sound it.

"Like, my whole family were like, looking forward to meeting you!"

"Don't you think this would have been a little harder if I'd waited until after I'd met your mom?" 

"No," Richard said, shaking his head. "no. It would have been, easier."

She gave him the Look, a tired scowl which had become pretty familiar over the last couple of months. 

"I mean, you couldn't give me, some warning? Some uh, some-"

"Richard," she said in a hard voice. "we never see each other. You work constantly. Can you remember the last time we had sex?"

"Yes," Richard said, after what was probably a too long pause. 

"Right," she said. "and when we do do it, you don't even seem to enjoy yourself. And I used to think you were so bad at kissing because you were shy, but we've seen each other naked now and you still kiss me like you think I taste bad."

"What- what the fuck? No? No! Uh"

"And when we talk," she said, zipping up the bag. "you pick on me and criticize me for the most inane things."

"I don't pick on you!!"

"Sunday you spent half an hour telling me I was an idiot for using Vim."

"No! No, no no, that is not what I was doing, I do not think you are an idiot, Winnie, which is why I don't want you to use Vim, like an idiot!!"

She flung the bag over her shoulder. "Bye, Richard."

"Bye," Richard said a little uselessly and looked after her as she walked out of the apartment. She closed the door behind her. Dinesh came out of the kitchen, eating cereal. 

"Vim is okay," he said. 

"No it is fucking not!" Richard said, kicked the wall, then jumped around on one foot, whimpering with pain.

*

Gilfoyle squinted at his calendar. Time was running out. Hm. Maybe try something else. Something more risky than what he'd initially planned. More humiliating. Not ideal. Not ideal at all. But if he was out of the country that could delay any legal repercussions. But he'd need photos. Very good photos. Appealing photos. He sighed.

He was going to have to go for a candle run.

*

Richard was drinking a cider in his room. He didn't really like the taste of alcohol but he felt like getting drunk, so he'd sulkingly bought a few cans of teenager tipple and was trying to get obliterated off something with the approximate alcohol content of a sherry trifle. So far it mostly just made him need to pee a lot.

"Ugh," he said out loud. "ugh. Ugh! Fuck! My life!"

His phone started ringing and he jumped. It was his mom. Oh great. Great! He'd actually kind of looked forward to this Christmas, to bringing his cute and normal girlfriend home. His sister already had two kids and she was younger than him, he was the forever alone weirdo who just worked and worked and worked. Appallingly, his dad had once intimated that Dinesh - co-founder of Pied Piper and roommate of three years - would be very welcome at their house. Richard had been like uh okay cool before he realised that there clearly was some kind of Hendricks family conspiracy theory that they were fucking. The prodigal son had moved to San Francisco and lived with a dude and they needed to let him know they were cool with it. Which. No. Absolutely not. It was 2019 for fuck's sake, adults lived together because the housing market was a shitshow, not because they were boning. That was right before he'd met Winnie, he'd gone a little on the offensive after the whole "you know we would love to meet Dinesh" talk, and met her at a bar, yeah that's right a bar, not a fucking app, and they'd talked and had things in common and they'd been together for about four months. But he couldn't have, like, four months and a week, could he? Oh no. 

His mom hung up, clearly giving up when he didn't pick up. His phone chimed with a text message instead.

"Leave me alone," Richard told the phone. He opened his laptop and started typing. He was not going to Tulsa for Christmas. He'd be by himself. He'd find somewhere nice where nobody knew him and nobody cared. Staying home was not an option, he spent most of his free time doing multiplayers with Dinesh so that was not going to be his fallback now.

He went on a house swapping website and got the option to choose countries. He wanted to go far away. Far fucking far - well, within a limited budget far away. Hawaii? Mexico? No, he could at least try for something Christmassy. He clicked on Canada. He clicked around and then his eyes stopped on a very cozy-looking cabin. There were tons of lit candles and even a Christmas tree in the photos. _Experience Christmas in a lovely Hudson Bay location. You will be snug as a bug in a rug in this festive cabin._

"Aww," Richard said out loud. Maybe the weak ass cider was starting to work. Then there was a photo of a weird little dog that looked like an Ewok. "Aww, oh my god," Richard said. _You will get to look after Teddy, the sweetest and gentlest little doggo in the world._ "Teddy," Richard said. "oh my god, Teddy." He wiped his eyes. Yeah, he was getting drunk.

He clicked to check out the host. His name was "Bertie", he smiled big in his photo, appeared to wear his hair in a ponytail and gave a thumbs up. _I'm Bertie Gilfoyle, I'm a fun and outgoing guy. Very clean, neat freak, non smoker. I like to get to bed early so I can wake up and go work out even earlier. Hobbies include reading good novels, going swimming, and having fun with friends. Looking to swap houses with someone in sunnier climes - preferably California - for Christmas as my Canadian self would love to experience a snow free Yule for once :-)_

Richard frowned. This guy didn't seem like he'd get along very well with Dinesh. But then again. Fuck Dinesh.

Richard opened a DM window. _Hi, I'm interested in the cabin_ he wrote.

The reply came almost immediately. _Cool! Where are you at?_

_San Francisco. I room with one dude, so you'd have to share with him, but we have a pretty big apartment and my room is big. You're maybe not into computers but I have a pretty great rig you could use if you wanted._

_I've always wanted to try a really nice computer :-) I have a Dell :-)_

Richard frowned. Uh. _So I'm Richard, I'm 34, I just want to spend Christmas somewhere quiet and nice. My girlfriend just dumped me._

_:-( I'm sorry_

"Me too," Richard said out loud. _Thanks. So ideally I'd like something really quick, if that's okay?_

_How about tomorrow?_

"Heh," Richard said, toasted the screen. "that is just fine, Bertie."

*

Gilfoyle nodded at the screen. Perfect. Decorating that fucking Christmas tree had been a pain in the ass but at least he finally got a bite. San Francisco? Couldn't have been better. Or, well. It would have been ideal without the roommate, but he definitely wasn't going to find anything better at shorter notice. He typed in a search for a flight to San Francisco the following morning on his 16 inch Macbook Pro, managed to find something he could afford with what was left of his funds. Teddy came into the room and stood up on his hind legs, leaning against Gilfoyle's chair. Gilfoyle reached out and pushed him down. "Fuck off, rodent."

*

**DECEMBER 24TH**

Richard messaged his mom apologetically saying he and Winnie had decided they were going to spend Christmas alone together in a romantic Hudson Bay cabin instead. She called him and he didn't pick up. After packing a few essentials including the warmest clothing he had and talking to Dinesh, who was disgusted by the prospect of spending a week with a stranger, he went to the airport and got on a flight to Ontario. When he got out it was bracingly cold, and he spent some time in a mall when he reached the city getting even warmer clothes. Then he rented a car and started driving, following the GPS with more and more disbelief, until he reached a cabin which was just as cute and idyllic and remote as the pictures would have it. Electric LED lights lit up the windows from inside.

"Heh," he smiled. He walked up and knocked. He could hear barks and howls coming from inside. He waited. Nobody answered. He frowned, tried the door. It opened. The tiny, weird ewok dog from the photo jumped up on its hindlegs and whined at him. "uh, uh, are you alone, here, buddy? Hello?"

He walked inside, Teddy trailing after, and found a note and a key on the living room table.

_Here's the key to the front door. Wood in the shed. You should probably walk the dog by now._

Richard frowned. The fuck? How long had the dog been on its own? He located Teddy's leash by the side of the door and took him on a little walk around the house. It was too dark to see much and it was snowing. He went back inside and the cabin was kind of freezing. He turned on all the lights, lit all the candles he could find, went outside for wood and spend twenty minutes with a youtube tutorial in front of him figuring out how to light the fireplace. It... was not as fucking easy as you'd think. Richard was starting to wonder exactly what he'd gotten himself into, but after a couple of hours the small cabin was heated in a nice, warm, cozy way, the candles gave off a lovely hushed lighting, Teddy was snoring lightly balled up on a sofa cushion (Richard had found his food in the fridge and fed him), and Richard was listening to a playlist of Christmas songs on his Bluetooth speakers and reading an astronomy book and drinking a Rock Star and he... felt pretty good.

Then, there was a knock on the door.

*

Gilfoyle took a Lyft to the address Richard had given him. He was fucking glad to be in San Francisco. He hated the fucking cold. Also, he'd probably be able to find some work here. He was an excellent coder. Sure, he had some things on his CV that rendered him unemployable a lot of places, especially in Canada, but nobody knew him here and he knew IT was a field that put up with a lot of assholes if they provided raw skill. This Richard lived in a fairly swanky apartment building. He put in the entry code he'd texted him and took the elevator up. He knocked on the door. A short ish Pakistani dude opened it with a scowl. 

"Are you Bertie?"

"Gilfoyle," Gilfoyle said and pushed through into the apartment.

"Hey!"

Gilfoyle looked around. The place really was big. It was pretty obvious two dudes lived together there. It was very simple, had posters instead of artwork on the walls and was full of shitty Goodwill furniture. But they had to have some money to be able to afford an apartment of this size. He looked over at the Pakistani dude again. He was kind of ripped.

"You Dinesh?"

"Uh yeah, obviously." The scowl intensified. "Here's the spare key. I'll show you Richard's room."

"Nice place," he said. "how did you manage to get it?"

"We bought it," Dinesh said. "we run a compession company together. Compression is when you take files on a computer and make them smaller."

"No shit."

"We're pretty successful. Not... millionaire successful, not yet at least, but we figured we could either buy two shitty small apartments separately or we could buy a nice big one if we roomed together. It works because we respect each others' space. Or well. We used to, anyway."

Dinesh opened the door to Richard's room. Gilfoyle nearly smiled. It was huge, had a very nice-looking double bed, and a computer rig with three screens on a neat desk in the corner. He noticed a post-it with a guest user login helpfully stuck to the middle screen. Well, that saved him some time hacking the fucker. What a thing of beauty. Richard also had some framed film posters, including for Cruising, the weird gay Al Pacino movie. He went over to his bookshelf. Books on coding languages, computer science, science fiction novels, Star Trek tie-ins, history books, even a couple of poetry books. Hmm.

"You staying here for Christmas?" he asked Dinesh, not turning.

"I'm muslim," Dinesh said contemptuously. "I don't celebrate Christmas. What about you? Why aren't you with your family?"

"I fucking hate them," Gilfoyle said. "and I'm a Satanist. I don't celebrate Christmas either."

"Ooh," Dinesh said in a faux-impressed whisper. "edgy. Well, let me show you the rest of the place."

Gilfoyle followed Dinesh who showed him where the bathroom and the kitchen and the balcony was. 

"Here's my room. You don't need to see that. Stay the hell out."

"I'll try to resist the temptation."

Dinesh squinted at him. "You're really nothing like Richard said you would be." He noticed Gilfoyle eyeing their gaming setup, the 65 inch TV and the Playstation, XBox and Switch. "Umm. You play Call of Duty?"

Gilfoyle raised an eyebrow.

*

Richard opened the door. A very tall and very pale man was on the other side, looking at him with a confused frown.

"Hello? You're not Gilfoyle?"

"Uh, no, I'm Richard," Richard said. Teddy woke up, jumped down from the sofa and ran over to greet Jared, wagging his butt uncontrollably. Jared leaned down and gave him cuddles. 

"Hey Teddy! Hey baby! Did you miss daddy? Oh goodness! I missed you!" He looked up at Richard. "Um, where is Gilfoyle?"

"He's uh, he's in my apartment, in San Francisco. We uh, we swapped houses through a website, so I'm spending Christmas in his place, here, and he's spending Christmas in mine."

"Oh," Jared said. "but this isn't Gilfoyle's place. It's mine."

"Um. What?"

"I had to go away for a week, very short notice, and I couldn't bring Teddy, and nobody could look after him, so I advertised for someone to house and dog-sit for me. He was the only person who replied." Jared frowned. "You got a Christmas tree?"

"That was uh that was here when I got here... uh... wait, this isn't his place??"

"No, it's, um, it's mine," Jared said. 

"Jesus Christ!"

*

The sound of the game drowned out the sound of Dinesh's phone blowing up with Richard's missed calls and notifications. 

"Um, hey, man," Dinesh said, turning after they'd beaten a huge ass boss together. "you want a beer?"

"Thought you said you were muslim."

"Well," Dinesh said, confused. "I'm not that kind of muslim."

"What kind of muslim are you?"

"Like, the kind of muslim that... doesn't believe in God."

Gilfoyle snorted a little involuntarily. "I'll have a beer."

*

"He's not picking up. What do I do? What do I do? What if he killed him?" Richard said, a little wild-eyed. He was imagining some pretty damning headlines. MAN'S DEATH CAUSED BY FRIEND'S STUPIDITY. MAN'S LACK OF BRAIN SENDS FRIEND TO BLOODY DEATH.

"Oh, I don't think... here uh..." Jared found his phone, called Gilfoyle's number.

*

Gilfoyle noticed his phone buzz while Dinesh was getting them beers. It was Jared Dunn. Well, he'd been waiting for it.

"Gilfoyle," he answered.

_"Yes uh hi, Gilfoyle? This is Jared, Jared Dunn? Um, there's a man here who says you're in his apartment and you swapped it for my cabin?"_

"Yep."

_"Well um, that's...not really okay."_

"I needed a place to crash in California and I only had money for the flight in. I tried looking for other gigs first. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

 _"What the fuck,"_ a voice Gilfoyle presumed to be Richard's, broke in. _"what the fuck man! Where's Dinesh! Is he okay?"_

"He's fine. We're playing video games."

_"Well uh uhhh you can't stay! You uh swapped houses under false pretenses!"_

"Unless you want to get the police involved I figure I can at least stay for the night. Do you want to get the police involved? I wouldn't recommend it." He sighed a little. "Look, I'm not a crim… I'm not a psycho. I just need a place to stay for a couple of days. As soon as you get back I'll be out of your hair."

Gilfoyle hung up and hoped for the best. Dinesh came back and handed him a beer.

"That was Richard on the phone. He says hi."


	2. Chapter 2

Richard stared at his phone. "He hung up on me," he said a little incredulously. "oh man. I have to, god fuck, I have to drive back to Ontario, I have to..."

"I don't think you can, Richard," Jared said gently. "there's a snow storm. I barely made it out here in time."

Richard looked at the snow piling down outside. "Fuck. Fuck. Where do I go? Is there a hotel nearby?"

"There isn't really anything nearby," Jared said. "but um, you can stay, of course. The sofa is very comfortable."

Richard smiled a little helplessly. "God, thanks. This is the messiest Christmas of my life."

"I've had worse," Jared said a little tunelessly. "I'm hungry, how about you?"

Richard nodded. He kind of was. Jared went out into his car and came back with bags of groceries. He started piling them onto the kitchen table.

"Uh, can I help?" Richard said. 

"Please," Jared said, found him a knife and a cutting board. "if you could very finely chop some onions for me."

Teddy was walking around Jared's legs. "You're not helping," he said, found him a chewing snack in a cupboard, and he proudly walked off with it to chew it in front of the fireplace.

"Your dog is so cute," Richard said, slowly chopping onions. He didn't really do any cooking ever. "what kind is it?"

"He's a Brussels Griffon. So um, what do you do, Richard?" Jared asked a little awkwardly.

"I run my own compression firm," Richard said. "me and my friend, Dinesh, started it a few years ago. It's doing okay. What about you?"

"Right now I work as a caregiver. I did work in biz dev for a while, but it made me unhappy. And Palo Alto was so expensive I didn't really manage to set any money aside."

"You were in Palo Alto? That's where I'm at."

"Oh. What's your firm called?"

"Pied Piper compression technologies," Richard said.

Jared turned to stare at him, grinned. "Wait. Richard. Richard _Hendricks?_ "

"Uh. Yeah?"

"Oh! How exciting! You're the reason I'm here, you know." Jared looked away a little shyly.

"What?"

"I worked at Hooli, back when you turned down the ten million. It was quite the story in the offices, let me tell you. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Most people in the business, they just care about money, and honestly that's the only reason I got into it too. But you... you stuck to your guns and wanted to do your own thing instead of just taking the easy payday. Can I have those onions?"

Richard handed him the cutting board. 

"You can get started on the tomatoes now, if you want. Dice them and put them in that bowl. Well, anyway, you got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life and it turns out developing meaningless, destructive technologies in a bigoted, volatile and unfair work environment was not it. I started looking at other stuff and the old people's home in this town offered accomodation as well as a job so I applied, I've been here for about a year."

"You work in an old people's home?" Richard wasn't sure he felt great about having served as inspiration to go live in the forest in fucking Canada and serve tapioca pudding to Alzheimers patients. 

"Yes. It's like, I have a bunch of parents, and I'm their parent too!" Jared beamed.

"uh"

"Teddy actually belonged to one of the residents, a great lady. I promised her I'd take care of him after she passed."

"Okay... so, you like doing that?"

"I do! It's meaningful work! I always feel happy going to work now, and I used to dread it. It's a little lonely living all the way out here, but it's nice and quiet too." Jared was frying up the onions in oil and Richard's stomach gave a growl. Apparently he was starving. 

It took a while before dinner was ready, but it was really good. Jared had fried up some sort of weird fake meat which tasted pretty good alongside the onions and spices, then he'd put in tomatoes and red wine and let it boil for a while before serving it over rice and Richard had cut up a salad. Jared opened a different red and filled a glass for Richard. He frowned a little, he wasn't a big wine fan, but it seemed churlish to be like no thanks, I've got like a case of Rock Star with me. The food was really fucking nice though. He barely ever had real, home cooked food, and he certainly never contributed himself, so even though he'd just chopped vegetables at Jared's instructions he felt kind of proud of himself. 

"That was delicious, thanks," Richard said, as they cleared the table and dumped the dirty dishes in the sink.

"Oh! Thank you! I'm glad you liked it." Jared walked over to the sofa and Richard followed, grabbing the bottle of wine and their glasses. It wasn't too bad once you've had a couple. Not like energy drink good, but drinkable.

"Um, so what are you doing for Christmas?"

Jared shrugged. "Not much. I don't have any family and I'm not currently seeing anyone, so."

Richard refilled their glasses. "I'm avoiding my family and I'm not seeing anyone either. Merry Christmas to us."

"Why are you avoiding them?" Jared frowned.

"Uh. It's dumb. My girlfriend dumped me yesterday..."

"Yesterday? Oh goodness, I'm so sorry!"

"It's fine, it wasn't like, really working out. I'm just kind of mad she couldn't wait until after Christmas. Like, finally I was going to bring someone home to the family for the holidays, and she pulls that shit, and she called me a bad kisser too. Fucking... Winnie." Richard scowled, feeling angry again.

"That's very unkind, I'm sure you're a good kisser," Jared said diplomatically.

"Nah," Richard sighed. "she's probably right. I'm terrible. I'm the worst." He took another big sip of his glass and then he turned around and kissed Jared, a wet and spontaneous kiss to his mouth. Jared made a surprised sound against him and Richard pulled away. "See?" Richard said. "Awful."

Jared stared at him for a beat, then cleared his throat. "I've had worse," he said. "you're fine."

"No I'm - no I'm not," Richard said, frustrated, flapping a hand around. "look, can I--" it might have been the alcohol - scratch that, it was definitely the alcohol - but it felt imperative Jared understand just how much of a fuckup he was. Jared closed his eyes and Richard leaned in again, kissed his mouth softly. Jared's lips parted a little and Richard caught his bottom lip and brought a hand up to cup his face. He pulled back after a few treacly seconds, felt weirdly dazed. That was probably the alcohol too. Jared was staring at him with very blue, starry eyes.

"Uh. See?" he said.

"Richard," Jared said gently, smiling a little. "have you ever considered the possibility that you were just kissing the wrong person before?"

*

**DECEMBER 25th**

Richard woke up and was confused. He was somewhere dark and warm and definitely not his own bed, and someone was sleeping beside him. He blinked and sat up. Jared was sleeping on his back, one hand beside his head, his chest mostly uncovered. Richard looked at the little indentation there, suddenly remembered how he'd filled it with his tongue last night and the sound Jared had made at that and flushed red. He took the duvet and covered Jared up and he made a sort of hum in his sleep and turned over on his side. Richard got up. 

Richard was very much not a one night stand kind of guy. Not that he had anything morally against them, not at all, he'd probably have them all the time if they didn't involve other people. But like - a TV program he remembered watching when he was a kid was some kind of survival show set on a fortress, and the creepiest part had always been a room full of urns where the contestants had to stick their hand down them and feel for a key, and the urns would always be full of gross shit. It was horrible enough watching someone stick their hand down there, why would he stick his dick into someone for all he knew could be full of scorpions and grub worms, metaphorically speaking? Or well, even literally, California was a pretty fucked up place some times. Um, but it... had been good with Jared. Like, weird good. He was a very... Richard didn't know how to explain it exactly. He was like a walking... safe space. Not a gross fortress urn. 

He walked downstairs to the kitchen and Teddy greeted him, wagging his little butt and running around his feet. "Hey buddy," Richard said and crouched down to pet him. "you wanna go for a walk?" The W word made Teddy set off like a jet towards the front door and look expectantly at him. Richard laughed.

He got dressed and leashed Teddy and set off outside. His rental car was fucking covered in snow. At least someone had been by and the road was pretty much clear, but it was still snowing. He got his phone out, let Teddy set the pace and look at and sniffle what he wanted. He called Dinesh.

_"Hi Richard."_

"Uh hi, Dinesh? Fuck, how are you?"

_"I'm fine. How's Canada?"_

"Uh, it's, snowy, uh, pretty good actually, but uh, the guy, Bertie, Gilfoyle, whatever, he's a fucking scammer. The place he traded with me isn't actually his."

_"I know, he told me last night. He's also a huge asshole, and a racist, and he's currently stinking up the place with smoke. Never fucking invite some freak from the internet to come live with me again, you total dick."_

"What? Oh my god, like uh, should I call the police?"

There was a pause. _"Nah, it's fine."_

"He's uh, he's smoking? Inside? Like, tell him to stop?"

Another pause. _"Richard, you know how everybody who smokes think they look cool, but 90 percent of them look like cancer sucking dicks?"_

"Uh?"

_"Well, Gilfoyle's in the ten percent."_

"What?" Richard grimaced, it was too early for this. "Are you telling me... it's okay because he looks cool smoking? Uh? Tell him to go on the fucking balcony!"

_"Yeah, yeah. Look, Richard. I showed Gilfoyle some of the code last night and he rewrote parts of it."_

"You - you fucking what?!"

_"He speeded up our response time nine percent. He also has a plan for solving our server problem."_

"We need fucking money to solve it."

_"He can build us a server room."_ Dinesh's voice was kind of awed. It never got like that unless he was talking about The Rock, or Han Solo. _"Richard, I think we should hire him. Also, he abhors spaces, he's as much of a dick about them as you."_

Richard could hear the monotone of Gilfoyle's voice somewhere in the background. "Okay so he's not a total supervillain, good for him, but-" 

_"I have to go, Richard. Talk to you later."_ Dinesh hung up.

"What the fuck," Richard said. He looked at Teddy, who was looking up at him with big round eyes and shivering a little. "yeah, I'm cold too, buddy. Let's go back inside."

They made their way back and Jared was in a bathrobe and slippers, in the kitchen, setting up a breakfast table. He burst into a big grin when he saw them and Teddy raced over to him, got up on his hind legs. Jared picked him up and cuddled him and Richard smiled at the sight of them. 

"Thanks for walking him," Jared said. "gosh, I was dead to the world."

"Yeah uh no problem."

Jared put Teddy down, who raced off to the sofa and jumped up on his cushion. He walked over to Richard and kissed him gently. "Merry Christmas, Richard. Hope you're hungry."

"Yeah uh Merry Christmas." Richard grinned, loosened Jared's robe, stroked his hands up the sides of his body and kissed him again. Jared pulled away, blushing a little, and re-fastened the robe. 

"Not in front of my son."

Richard laughed, and sat down at the breakfast table. "Um, so I spoke to Dinesh." He poured himself some coffee. It smelled really good. "He uh, he. Likes? Gilfoyle? Talked about hiring him?"

"Oh," Jared said, surprised. "well, I guess he's happy to have Gilfoyle stay a while?"

"Sure sounded like it."

"Maybe you'd like to stay for a little while longer too?" Jared said. "I think Teddy would like that."

Richard grinned wide. Teddy, hearing his name, looked up from the sofa.

*

On Christmas Day Gilfoyle slept in until nearly two. He woke up and stretched, comfortable in Richard's bed. Yesterday had been okay. This Dinesh dude was kind of a shithead, but he was kind of tolerable too. And his Company, Pied Piper, was really interesting. He got up and over cereal and a cigarette he sketched out some possible solutions for Pied Piper's obvious scaling issues. He felt like he could contribute. They clearly needed some help if they were going to be able to keep up with the competition. If this Richard guy was as much of a fuckup as Dinesh, he felt like it could be a comfortably non coorperate place to work. So he made a real effort, even if he wasn't being paid, in the hope that these idiots would see how much of an asset he was. Dinesh padded out from his bedroom, yawned, and looked at his drawings.

"What's that?"

"I'm thinking of naming him Anton."

* 

Richard and Jared decided to go into the nearest town to pick up some supplies. Snow was falling, and the streets were lit up with bright decorations. Teddy was on the leash, walking in front of them, and Jared had on a thick coat and a home knit scarf and hat. It made him look a little bit more substantial. Richard smiled up at him, and reached out to hold his hand.

*

Dinesh lost another Rocket League tournament. 

"You truly suck," Gilfoyle said.

"I do not, you're cheating, you canuck piece of shit."

"How about we make it interesting?"

"Huh?"

"Loser sucks the winner's dick."

Gilfoyle wasn't really serious, but Dinesh went very, very quiet and didn't meet his eye, so he decided to play it cool.

Dinesh started a new round.

*

"What did you do at Hooli anyway?" Richard asked, putting a bag of chips in the shopping cart.

"Oh, normal biz dev stuff. Facilitating growth, basically, making operations run smoother. Overseeing projects, maintaining customer relationships, improving workflow and team communications."

"See, you just said a whole bunch of words I should probably know what means but I don't." Richard sighed. "How do you improve workflow?"

"A lot of people are incentivised by a little competition, so something very simple could just be writing all tasks that need to get done on post its, pin them on a board, and then workers can choose a task, stick it under their name, move it do another field when it's finished. That way everyone can see what's being worked on, who's working on it, and when it's done. That’s something someone with my job could implement if they saw the need for it."

"Ha. That like... sounds basic, but me and Dinesh lost half a day's work once because we were both working on the same issue simultaneously." Richard frowned. "Huh."

Jared shrugged a little. "That's just a simple example. It gets more complicated than that."

Richard bit his lip. "Uh, I wanna uh, get you a Christmas present for helping me out. What, Jared, in the whole of this tiny supermarket that is open for another half an hour, is your heart’s desire?"

Jared smiled a little bashfully, disappeared for a moment, and came back with two boxes of Celestial Seasonings.

*

**DECEMBER 31st**

Richard unlocked the door to his apartment, and Jared walked in after him. 

"Uh, hello?" he said. Moments later a guy wearing pajama pants and a T shirt with a pentagram on it came trailing out of Richard’s bedroom. He had hair almost down to his shoulders, a beard and his glasses were a little askew. Richard frowned at him, almost recognised him from that little picture on the house swapping website. "Um. Bertie?"

"Gilfoyle," he said in a monotone. "you Richard?"

"Uh, yeah. Where’s, where’s…"

Dinesh came half-running out of Richard’s bedroom. Richard frowned. "Richard, hey, I didn’t know you were coming back already."

"I texted you like an hour ago."

Dinesh grimaced and pointed at Teddy, who Jared was holding in his arms. "What the FUCK is that!"

"His name is Jared," Gilfoyle said. Jared laughed.

"Oh, Gilfoyle. This is my dog, Teddy. Would you like to say hello?"

Dinesh took a step back. "I hate dogs."

"So do I," Gilfoyle said. Dinesh turned and looked at him with a doting sort of smile Richard knew for a fact he had never seen on his face before. Fucking weird. 

"Yeah well," Richard said. "you’ll tolerate his one."

"Didn’t really expect to see you again," Gilfoyle told Jared. 

"Um uh, so like, uh, me and uh Jared Dunn here, Dinesh, have been working on, a new and improved business plan for uh for Pied Piper, and well um, I offered him a job. I really think uh we need someone who actually knows about the business side of things, because, uh, we suck."

"Oh, cool, welcome aboard Jared," Dinesh said. Richard was a little surprised. He’d expected a full blown Chugtai sulk fest over having hired someone without his approval. "and I found us a new systems architect, who’s already mapped out a plan to solve our server issues."

"Hi," Gilfoyle said.

"Oh um well. Cool," Richard said. He couldn’t exactly be less graceful than fucking Dinesh.

*

They were around Dinesh and Richard’s large dinner table, which was mostly just a dumping ground for various papers and things. They’d cleared it and ordered some Postmates, the debris of which was now on the floor, and were now playing with a stupid ball Dinesh had picked up on one of his ebay runs. Teddy was sitting on Jared’s lap and following the ball with his eyes, his little bearded head moving as it was thrown up and down.

"Always blue! Always blue!"

"Guys, guys," Jared said, looking at his watch. "it’s – wait – wait – it’s midnight! It’s 2020. Happy new year."

"Happy new year," Richard smiled up at him, then thought, oh, fuck it, leaned in and gently kissed his lips. He nervously glanced over at Dinesh and Gilfoyle, expecting Looks. Instead he saw Gilfoyle having pulled Dinesh in for a kiss with a hand on his jaw. He pushed Dinesh away and Dinesh grinned, looked awed and flushed and- oh. Oh, Christ. Richard made a mental note to change the sheets on his bed, and burn the old ones. Richard cleared his throat, grabbed his Rock Star.

"To Pied Piper!"

"Pied Piper," the others chimed in, and drank. 

Richard had a feeling this was going to be a very interesting year.


End file.
